Tuesday’s Campaign Round-Up, 7.5.16

Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.

* The latest USA Today/Suffolk poll shows Hillary Clinton leading Donald Trump nationally, 45.6% to 40.4%. That’s roughly in line with the overall averages, which show the Democrat with a six-point advantage.

* Responding to the Trump campaign’s Jewish-star controversy over the holiday weekend, Sarah Bard, the director of Jewish outreach for the Clinton campaign, said in a statement yesterday, “Donald Trump’s use of a blatantly anti-Semitic image from racist websites to promote his campaign would be disturbing enough, but the fact that it’s a part of a pattern should give voters major cause for concern. Now, not only won’t he apologize for it, he’s peddling lies and blaming others…. The president should be someone who brings Americans together, not someone who sends signals and offers policies of division.”

* According to two Trump campaign aides, the presumptive Republican nominee, up until quite recently, “was not even aware” that the party’s national convention “had to be held in Cleveland.”

* President Obama will join Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail in North Carolina today. It’s the first time this cycle the two will host a joint event.

* Late last week, the Clinton campaign announced its fundraising totals for June: more than $68.5 million for the month, of which $40.5 million was raised specifically for the campaign. The other $28 million went to the Democratic Party at the state and national level through the Hillary Victory Fund and the Hillary Action Fund.

* Trump will only speak once during the Republican National Convention, but he wants everyone to know “they” asked him to deliver three separate speeches over the course of three nights. He turned them down. (We don’t know who “they” are.)

* Though many Republicans hoped Sheldon Adelson would create a pro-Trump super PAC this year, his spokesperson told the L.A. Times the casino magnate is “not actually starting a PAC despite what has been reported.”

* And on Friday, Sam Clovis Trump’s campaign co-chair, claimed Trump never vowed to bring back waterboarding and “enhanced interrogation techniques” if elected. Reality tells a very different story.